Catching Up with the Pac-12, Part 1
Checking in with Stanford, Arizona and UCLA
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The Conference of Champions isn’t just a marketing tagline. Not when you put half of your conference in the NCAA Tournament and have the last two teams standing when the festivities come to their conclusion. What happens now as the league moves into what everyone hopes is a more typical season?
Well, just like everyone else in college basketball, what comes next is a heap of change. Since the Stanford Cardinal and the Arizona Wildcats returned home from their intraconference struggle for the national title, the rosters and coaching staffs around the league have undergone radical reconfiguring. What should fans be ready for?
In the first of a four-part series, we take a look at last year’s top three teams. What’s new? What’s the same? What should we expect in 2021-22?
Stanford Cardinal
2020-21 season: The Cardinal finished 31-2 overall and 19-2 in conference play. The logistics of the pandemic season were unique for Stanford, as the team was forced off campus for almost two months when Santa Clara County made it impossible to practice or play games in Maples Pavilion.
Despite having to live on the road and play “home” games in Santa Cruz, the Cardinal won the Pac-12 regular season, the Pac-12 Tournament title, and the national championship. They were ranked No. 2 in the final AP poll on March 14, 2021 and No. 1 in the final USA Today/WBCA poll on April 5.
Key losses: Kiana Williams went out on top. The Cardinal’s point guard won a title in her hometown, then she declared for the WNBA draft. Maya Dodson opted out of the season, then put herself into the portal as a grad transfer. She has since landed at Notre Dame.
Key returners: Despite being one of the best teams in the country, Stanford was also very young. They will return 12 members of last year’s 13-player roster, including last year’s co-Defensive Player of the Year Anna Wilson. Most importantly, they return Final Four Most Outstanding Player Haley Jones.
Key additions: Stanford has no difficulty getting the top young talent year in and year out. The Cardinal will bring in the No. 6 class according to ESPN HoopGurlz just like they did in 2020. In 2019, it was the No. 2 class. With the return of Wilson, the Cardinal have players from every class from 2016 to 2021. All of those classes were ranked in the top 10.
Stanford also did something that it had never done before. For the first time in program history, the Cardinal will have an incoming grad transfer. Former Northwestern guard Jordan Hamilton will join the team for the 2021-22 season, giving them a bit more experience.
What’s next: There’s no reason to expect the Cardinal to fall off. They should be in the hunt for both the conference and national crowns again next season. Little has changed since last year either on the court or off, and most of the changes that have occurred have been positive ones.
When the preseason voting starts, the Cardinal may not place the most players on the preseason watch lists, but the team should be picked to win the conference and return to the Final Four. That’s all that matters.
Arizona Wildcats
2020-21 season: Because of the pandemic, the Wildcats didn’t have the most wins in program history (21-6, 13-4), but they did reach heights that were uncharted for Arizona. The team finished second in the Pac-12 regular season before falling to UCLA in the semifinals of the conference tournament.
That was just the warm-up for a phenomenal run through the NCAA Tournament. After missing the Big Dance for 16 years, the Wildcats ran off five victories to reach the national title game before falling to Stanford by one point.
The Wildcats were No. 11 in the final AP poll and No. 2 in the final USA Today/WBCA poll.
Key losses: No one loses more than Arizona in the offseason, and it’s all because of one player. Pac-12 Player of the Year and co-Defensive Player of the Year Aari McDonald was the best player to ever wear a Wildcat uniform. Now, head coach Adia Barnes must prepare for life after the third pick in this year’s WNBA draft.
The Wildcats also lost grad transfer Trinity Baptiste, who led the team in rebounds and was third in scoring during her only year in Tucson. Baptiste, like McDonald, heard her name called during the 2021 WNBA Draft, landing with the Indiana Fever with the final pick of the second round. While she didn’t stick with the Fever, she has since signed a contract to play in Europe.
Arizona lost three players to the transfer portal—sophomore guards Mara Mote and Tara Manumaleuga and freshman forward Marta Garcia—but none of them saw regular playing time. Manumaleuga has since landed at TCU and Garcia is with Florida Atlantic.
Key returners: When Wildcat fans showed up at Arizona Stadium to welcome the team home from San Antonio, they were greeted by the best news short of McDonald foregoing the draft for a second time: senior wing Sam Thomas would be back for her fifth year.
The four-year captain was already a grad student after completing her bachelor’s degree in three years, but she wasn’t yet ready to hang it up and pursue a career with Nike. Her decision means that Arizona will return six of its eight primary rotation players and three starters from last year.
Other than Thomas, the most important returning starter is another player who has started every game of her career, senior Cate Reese. The two-time All-Pac-12 performer has been the team’s second-leading scorer for the past three years and leading rebounder for two of the past three.
Key additions: The Wildcats have the 16th-ranked class according to ESPN. One member of that class has been on campus since January.
Guard Madi Conner chose to enroll early and got to experience the run to the national championship game despite playing very little. She is joined by highly-regarded Estonian guard Anna Gret Asi, four-star post Aaronette Vonleh, and Spanish wing Gisela Sanchez in the 2021 class.
Two things Arizona rosters are known for are international recruits and transfers. Next year will be no different.
In addition to the incoming class that features two international players, the Wildcats add transfers Koi Love from Vanderbilt, Taylor Chavez from Oregon, and Ariyah Copeland from Alabama. Copeland initially committed to LSU but changed course after head coach Nikki Fargas unexpectedly resigned.
Because of the change to NCAA transfer rules, all transfers will be immediately eligible this year. Love will have up to three years to play for Arizona, while Chavez will have two to play in her native state. Copeland will be playing her final year in college after spending four seasons in Tuscaloosa.
What’s next: Arizona will not be projected to be a Final Four team next season, but most didn’t project it this season. They were left off most of the “too early” rankings lists that went out just moments after their loss to Stanford, as well.
That will certainly give Barnes more fuel for the motivational “no one respects us” fire. The combination of quality returners, a ranked recruiting class, and impact transfers who fill areas of need will give her team the opportunity to disprove the doubters once again, but the loss of a player like McDonald is something few programs can absorb without a drop-off.
The Wildcats also underwent some turmoil on the sidelines. After assistant coach Tamisha Augustin went to Mississippi State and Jackie Nared-Hairston returned to Oregon, Barnes initially grabbed two assistants who just finished their own Pac-12 campaigns. That didn’t last for long, though.
April Phillips returned to Tucson from Berkeley where she had been on Charmin Smith’s Golden Bears staff the past two years. Phillips was Arizona’s recruiting coordinator during the WNIT championship season in 2018-19. Just two months after talking about how excited she was to rejoin the Arizona staff, Phillips was being announced as the new addition to Vic Schaeffer’s staff at Texas.
The retirement of USC head coach Mark Trakh left Erin Grant available for a brief time. Her move to Tucson stuck longer than that of Phillips. She has since been joined by Ashley Davis, who spent the past six seasons at Oklahoma State, to complete the Arizona staff.
UCLA Bruins
2020-21 season: The UCLA Bruins were struck hard by the pandemic. Not only did they have to navigate the difficult restrictions in California, but they also had a serious lack of depth.
First, head coach Cori Close learned that two of her players would be opting out of the season. That should have been fairly easy to deal with if not for some red tape that kept two of their recruits from ever reaching Westwood.
Two Australian recruits were kept out of the country due to rules that kept new international students from entering the U.S. if their institution did not offer in-person classes. The issue dragged out all year, eventually moving Gemma Potter to decommit and pursue a professional career in Australia.
Despite having just eight scholarship players, UCLA went 17-6, including 12-4 in conference play. The Bruins reached the Pac-12 championship game and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
They may have wanted more, but it was quite an accomplishment for a team that couldn’t even run five-on-five drills with their existing roster.
Key losses: Like the two teams listed above them, the Bruins will lose their senior leader and biggest star to the WNBA. Michaela Onyenwere led a depleted UCLA team to the Pac-12 Tournament championship game and on to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. She has been a revelation for the New York Liberty, emerging as the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year.
Key returners: Charisma Osborne will be the biggest returner for the Bruins, but “returner” has a different meaning for UCLA than for some other teams. They will also get back Kayla Owens and Kiara Jefferson, the two players who opted out of the 2020-21 season.
The return of Natalie Chou, who is taking advantage of the NCAA’s extra year of eligibility, will also provide continuity for UCLA.
Key additions: As with returners, there’s more than meets the eye to UCLA additions.
Izzy Anstey, one of the Australian players who was not able to enter the U.S. last year, has finally arrived in Westwood.
Dominique Onu was scheduled to join UCLA in 2021-22. Instead, she gave the Bruins some much-needed depth by joining the group of early enrollees. Onu was known as Dominique Darius last year prior to getting married.
UCLA was also able to grad several key transfers. AAC Player of the Year IImar’I Thomas, who achieved feats never seen before as a Cincinnati Bearcat, is headed to UCLA. Indiana’s Jaelynn Penn will play her fifth year of college ball as a Bruin, as will former Wake Forest guard Gina Conti.
The transfer market brought a more long-term piece when Close and her staff acquired former Oregon forward Angela Dugalic. Dugalic was a member of the Ducks’ No. 1 recruiting class in 2020 that consisted of five five-star players, but she became one of several members of the team to leave Eugene. UCLA was the beneficiary. Due to the extra year granted by the NCAA, Dugalic could conceivably be in Westwood for four years.
What’s next: There’s no doubt that Onyenwere is a big loss for the Bruins. Of the players who opted not to use their extra year of eligibility, she probably had a bigger impact on her team than anyone in the Pac-12 but McDonald. Close did a good job of shoring up the roster with experience in the offseason, though.
The Bruins bring in only one freshman recruit in Spanish forward Marta Morales, but the addition of Dugalic and Anstey gives them the equivalent of a three-player freshman class.
The biggest challenge for Close will be blending all of the new additions. UCLA has eight players on the roster who did not play with the team last season. Six of those players have never played for the program.
With the amount of talent they have, though, they should have no problem remaining in the top half of the conference.
Stay tuned for part two of this series. Next week, we will take a look at Oregon, Oregon State, and Colorado.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.